~ For when you're stuck on that tricky quest!

We have progress!

Hazel Raindawn posted on Facebook she has received a reply from the CEO of the game.

“I received another reply from the SEO of Star Stable – good news! They are testing out the idea of a volunteer moderator program!

Hazel Raindawn , sorry for the delay on replying to your message again.
A volunteer program is thankfully not a new idea and has been used in many other titles. It can work well (and has worked very well in two of the other games I have worked on) but it far from perfect and requires work and supporting systems to make it effective. A great deal of harassment and bullying happens in private channels and the action we take is not always publicly visible as we have to maintain the privacy of everyone involved. We do take all claims of this kind very seriously. We are already running a test program of a “volunteer moderator” program on the Swedish server. When we get the systems in place for them to be able to work effectively with the community we will be expanding it to all the servers. Issuing warnings without the ability to immediately follow up is not going to be effective and requires significant investment and development to achieve.

I do agree this kind of behaviour is a problem, which is why we are always going to work to try and find ways to improve the way we detect and handle these situations. We already handle thousands of issues and customer mails every week in six different languages. A volunteer program will help in this area which is exactly why we are working on it. At the end of the day we want parents of younger children to understand that nothing we can do will ever be a good substitute for engaging with your children and helping them learn to handle difficult situations that might arise, either in our game or in real life.

We hope to be able to expand our volunteer program in the near future. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Constructive dialogue is a great place for us to start improving this together.

Sincerely,

Colin Colin Hayes Cragg
CEO – Star Stable”

This is exactly what I have been striving for. I know implementing a functional moderator system is a huge task and certainly can’t be completed overnight. I’m surprised we’ve gotten through so quickly. This makes me immensely happy because it means we have game staff that do indeed listen to their players and care about their input (I have played several games where this was not true, needless to say I did not play them for very long). Now that we know that the staff is aware (they probably have been for awhile, but I like to know that they are aware) I want to make the ultimate goal of this to bring awareness to the community as a whole. Because, really, that’s what we are. A community. We play this game together, we interact with each other, and our own behavior sets the mood for the community.

In a perfect world, there would be no need for moderators. While this world is not perfect, we can always keep that poster in mind as we play. I will be keeping the petition open. The game staff are aware of the petition and I think it will help them in the future when they are working on implementing the moderator feature for sure. Continue to report bad behavior you see in the game. And don’t start fights to begin with. Even if someone says something rude to you, add them to your ignore list (second to the ‘friends’ tab) and walk away. Don’t let them ruin your day, and definitely don’t reply to them. That only stoops to their level and now you are not any better than they are.

Let’s make this game a better place. Let’s continue help our fellow players. Let’s strive to be the best riders that we can be.

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8 thoughts on “We have progress!”

Yes! I am glad we got through to them. I received the same e-mail in accordance with my e-mail. I can see where volunteer moderators can take their power and abuse it, which makes me happy they are testing it out to see who should and shouldn’t a moderator, and what to look out for.
However, I do agree that parents need to step in and show their children how to handle bullying and situations that do arise the same as they do in Star Stable and in real life, and monitor their internet use.

We will never be able to filter all the bad words (like using beach for the word…well, you know) because that’s unrealistic, but the placement of more moderators will certainly help. 🙂

No. The game is based in Sweden, so it’s understandable that they would test on the Swedish server first so 1: they don’t have to translate, and 2: it’s easier to fix one broken server than a whole bunch of broken servers. I think it is a little selfish to be upset that the Swedish server gets everything first. Really they don’t. Yes, they get to test it, but they still don’t get to enjoy it as a finished product yet, which we will get to right away when it is released.

I sent in a ticket as well, but was waiting for a reply before I posted on the other page that no longer exists. Lol. Anyways, in the reply I got Catherine from support said that they are also looking into an option for players to turn off and remove chat. Which, to me would be a big plus since I play SSO with my two young nieces (whom aren’t even left at my computer by their-selves and chat is never open while they’re on; despite only one being able to read so far). She also says that their chat provider, Crisp, sends them tickets of everything possibly inappropriate, including words used to get around the filters and etc..

Lastly, I’ll copy it, “At the moment, what our users can do to help us is to report the users who are breaking our Terms of Service so we can address the problem at the source and deal with the situation much faster. There are consequences for users who break the rules, such as temporary suspension to the removal of the chat for these users.”

I’m not exactly sure how to report players on SSO, but I’m sure I’ll find how soon enough.

This is indeed a ray of light at the end of the tunnel.
At least we know for sure they are trying to get something in place to deal with this situation.
Sadly “Parental Guidance” is sadly lacking as well and we do realize this.
But having real Mods who have the authority to act immediately will certainly deter much of what goes on in Global Chat.
Right now the threat of reporting bad behavior is a standing joke and the players who are acting inappropriately could care less about being reported
They tell you to “Go ahead,report me. Nothing ever happens anyway”.